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    Health Assessment And Promotion Proctored Exam 3 2026

    The person with receptive aphasia would have lost which ability?

    Explanation & Rationale

    Receptive aphasia, or Wernicke's aphasia, results from a lesion in the posterior superior temporal lobe of the dominant hemisphere. While speech remains fluent, it is often devoid of meaning, a phenomenon known as word salad. The patient loses the ability to decode auditory or written linguistic symbols. A. Walk or Stand: Motor functions like walking or standing are controlled by the motor cortex and cerebellum. Impairment in these areas causes ataxia or paralysis, not aphasia. Aphasia is strictly a disorder of language processing, not a physical mobility or balance deficit. B. Understand language: Receptive aphasia specifically impairs the comprehension of spoken and written words. The patient can hear the sounds but cannot translate them into meaningful concepts. This is the defining characteristic of this neurological condition. C. Taste: The sense of taste, or gustation, is mediated by cranial nerves VII, IX, and X. It is a special sensory function unrelated to the linguistic processing centers of the brain. Aphasia does not impact the chemical receptors on the tongue. D. Smell: Olfaction is processed by the olfactory nerve and the primary olfactory cortex. Loss of smell is termed anosmia and typically results from nasal pathology or frontal lobe trauma. It has no functional overlap with the comprehension of language.

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